This headline (and story) was sent to Evergreen members a couple of days ago which confirms the value the nimble dedicated Central chapter has provided to the USFS over the years.

Personally I'm a little jealous but Matt Rose has his own excavator (and is the best woodsman I've ever known) and we have a dozen chainsaw guys and maybe a grip hoist.

All kidding aside, this is a well deserved award and solid example that maintaining and building trails in cooperation with the USFS and other public jurisdictions is one of the prime Evergreen functions to match land manager needs with capable on the ground leadership and a pool of helpful volunteers.

This also confirms to me that anytime you can spare to help on the trails that you ride makes you one of the tendrils that hold the Mt. Bike community's access firm and you stewardship minded members are highly regarded as a value-addition to the land manager's overall trail user population.

The March "bike" magazine article "cascades crusader" highlights James Munly's efforts in Leavenworth. This is a great use of a bike magazine: showing hard core riders who double as trail advocates and I learned he is now is an everGreen employee. Whoo hoo! The first time I met him was over 10 years ago at a packed public meeting in Leavenworth about trails. When he talked I knew Leavenworth was in good hands so I'm really pleased with this latest news.

The back of his truck looks like mine with Stihl orange and trail tools galore :-)

Besides our hero this issue of bike (all lower case) seemed to point out trail workers from Malibu to Newfoundland like I've never noticed in one issue. Trail worker/riders know what they do in some small way adds value and are ride oriented not attention seeking. Showcasing this in print is healthy for those on the fence that a tip towards contributing.